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Christian, Muslim or Something Else

I know why it is so hard for people to identify President Obama’s religion. The number of people who think that he is a Muslim is rising, and the number of people who think that he is a Christian is shrinking. However, the answer will not be found in the polls. The polls ask the wrong questions of the wrong people for the wrong reasons.

Barak Husein Obama was a Muslim by birth because, according to Islamic doctrine, all children are born Al-Fitra (in a pure, natural state of submission to Islam). His father was a Muslim, and Obama went to a madrasa (Muslim school) as a child. He admits that his father was not a practicing Muslim, which would make him an apostate or moderate Muslim.

However, at some point he joined the United Church of Christ (UCC), and to do that he would have to have ostensibly proclaimed himself to be a Christian.

So, the real question that needs to be answered is: What kind of Christian is President Obama? And to answer that question we must ask: What kind of church is the United Church of Christ? Was Rev. Jeremiah Wright an outlier in the UCC? In some ways he was, but in other ways Jeremiah Wright was the bee’s knees of the UCC. He was highly regarded as a successful minister and was to be emulated. The UCC was never ashamed of Wright, nor was he ever disciplined for any of his beliefs. Rather, in many ways Wright set the tone for the UCC by being a radical liberation theologian, a civil rights leader, and a political preacher — and President Obama idolized him for many years. In short, Jeremiah Wright was simply a product of his UCC training. I know because I grew up in the UCC and served as an ordained minister in that denomination for fifteen years before jumping ship.

According to Obama’s biography his role as a community organizer was suspect in the Black community because he claimed no religion. Joining the UCC remedied that problem. So, his church membership was likely engaged out of pragmatic reasons. In fairness, many people — especially men — join churches for similar reasons. We must also assume that Mr. Obama grew spiritually while he was involved in the UCC. But he likely grew to appreciate the teachings and doctrine of the UCC and of Jeremiah Wright, otherwise he would have found another church to join.

Thus, President Obama’s Christianity is founded and grounded in the UCC, and the UCC is an apostate, moderate, progressive denomination — Christian, but apostate, unfaithful. The UCC is functionally unitarian, and has led the charge regarding the abandonment of traditional Christianity through the embrace of Liberalism, and the ordination of practicing homosexuals. The UCC ordained William Johnson, a practicing homosexual, in 1972. The UCC has spearheaded the evangelism and acceptance of homosexual practice among the mainline denominations through its many ecumenical relationships.

It is really hard to tell whether most UCC churches are actually Christian. It is no surprise that people have the same problem with President Obama. Thus, when we ask what kind of Christian might the President be, we find that his faith, like his father’s, whether Muslim or Christian, is at best apostate, moderate and progressively faithless.